Method of baling town or urban refuse

ABSTRACT

In forming batches of town refuse into bales in order to prevent the formation of compressed air pockets within the bale which would tend to cause the bale to increase in dimension or perhaps disintegrate, the batch of material while in the bale chamber is treated with steam so that this steam at least partially fills the pockets an upon cooling forms partial vacuums in the pockets, whereby the inherent compressive forces of compressed air pockets are avoided.

[ July 24, 1973 United States Patent [191 Wood [ METHOD OF BALlNG TOWN RURBAN 1,538,375 1925 Berrigan REFUSE 3,691,648

2/1971 Kraus............

6/1941 Perlberg.........:::: 10/1889 413,232 Houseman et al Inventor:Eric Wood, Pontefract, England Assignee: Refuse Compaction Ltd.,Bedfordshire, England Primary ExaminerBilly .l. Wilhite Att0rney-AbrahamA. Saffitz [22] Filed: Apr. 22, 1971 [21] App1.No.: 136,604

[57] ABSTRACT In forming batches of town refuse into bales in order toprevent the formation of compressed air pockets within the bale whichwould tend to cause the bale to increase 0 7 6 5 9 1 m a" Dm y" in ronn.m m H 0B .1 mm mm G p m B .w w "a on F. r p. A l. 0 3 l in dimensionor perhaps disintegrate, the batch of material while in the bale chamberis treated with steam so that this steam at least partially fills theupon cooling forms partial vacuums in the pockets, whereby the inherentcompressive forces of compressed air pockets are avoided.

pockets an 1 H0100 o m m 2 8 3 3 4 "w 00 "0 O 1 m" m "m 0 n 1 u m mh U c.r n "a m & L mt. C U .m Mk U IF l. 1 2 8 5 55 2 Claims, 4 DrawingFigures [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 670,436 3/1901Schmidsecler....... 100/73 PATENTED M24 3, 747. 516

SHEET 1 BF 2 METHOD OF BALING TOWN OR URBAN REFUSE This inventionrelates to a method of baling town or urban refuse.

Town or urban refuse is at present created in large quantities in towns,cities and in general in places of human habitation. Its disposal is acontinually increas ing problem in view of the tendency towardsthrowaway containers and other articles, although town and urban refuseincludes all of the general garbage which fiows from human habitation.

One proposal for disposing of the refuse is to burn or incinerate thesame, but the cost of an incineration plant, even for an average sizedBritish city is considerable and the ash resulting from the incinerationstill requires disposal.

Another proposal is to compact batches of the refuse into bales and thenbury the bales or drop them into the ocean. This represents a moreattractive course to us and indeed we have already invented a balingpress which, although it can be used to bale other materials, isprincipally for baling town refuse.

In baling town refuse, it is always desirable that the resulting balesshould be as compact as possible so that the bales will have maximumdensity or conversely minimum volume.

We have noticed that when town refuse is baled, when the restrainingpressure of the baling chamber walls is removed i.e. when the compactedbale is ejected to atmosphere, the bale tends to expand therebyincreasing its volume or decreasing its density. This is due to the factthat town refuse in bale form, by the very nature of the refuse, trapsair within the bale and this air is compressed during compaction in thebale chamber. When the restraint of the bale chamber walls is removed,the trapped air again expands increasing the bale dimensions.

In this invention we aim to provide a method of baling town refusewhereby this tendency ofthe bale to expand is reduced or eliminated.

According to the present invention there is provided, a method of balingtown refuse wherein a batch of loose refuse is compacted under power ina final baling chamber of the form which the bale is to take, and steamis forced into the refuse before it reaches final compaction chamberdisplacing air from pockets inside the refuse and thereby, in thefinally compact bale, becoming trapped in said pockets in place of air.

By this method the spaces in the bale become filled or partly filledwith steam as opposed to air and upon ejection of the bale from the balechamber this steam tends to cool and condense and therefore createpartial vacuums in the bale spaces rather than pockets of high pressuretending to increase the bale dimensions in the case of pockets of air.The bale dimension, as dictated by the baling chamber tends therefore toremain more stable.

The steam may be injected into the baling chamber before, after orsimultaneously with compaction of the bale, or it may be injected intothe chamber at a stage or stages where an initial but not the finalcompaction of the bale has taken place.

The compaction process may take place in two stages in the manner as setforth in our co-pending application 107,818, filed Jan. 19, 197], nowabandoned, that is, the batch of loose town refuse may be loaded into afirst compaction chamber where it is given an initial compaction, andthen it may be compacted in a direction transverse to the direction ofinitial compaction, during which subsequent compaction the bale ispushed from the first compaction chamber into a second compactionchamber wherein it is compacted to final size. The steam may be injectedinto the first or second compaction chamber or both, The second balechamber may then be displaced, whilst containing the compacted bale, toan ejection station whereat the compacted bale, containing steam in thespaces therein, is ejected from the second compaction chamber.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described, by way ofexample, with reference to the ac companying drawings, wherein FIG. I isa perspective view of a baling press for town refuse and adapted to balethe refuse according to the embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a sectional plan of the press shown in FIG. 1 the sectionbeing taken on the line II II of FIG. 3;

FIG. 3 is a sectional elevation of the press shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, thesection being taken on line III III of FIG. 2; and

FIG. 4 shows, to an enlarged scale, details in section, of the secondbaling chamber.

Referring to the drawings, and firstly to FIGS. 1 to 3, the baling presscomprises a first compacting chamber 10 which is generally rectangularand is closable by a door 12. One side of the chamber 10 is defined by afirst compaction plate 14 (FIG. 2) which is movable horizontally by apair of first compacting, double acting rams 16. As the rams 16 areextended from the position shown in FIGS. I and 2, plate 14 is movedinto the first compacting chamber 10.

The baler press includes a second compaction means in the form of atoggle joint mechanism indicated gen erally by'reference numeral 20 andcomprising two arms 22 and 24 having a pair of adjacent ends pivoted topivot block 26. The other end of arm 22 is connected to a compensatingpiston 28 which is housed in a fixed compensating cylinder 30. The freeend of arm 24 is pivotally connected to a compaction bar 32 (see FIG. 2)which presses upon the batch of material after initial compaction byplate 14 to perform the final compaction thereof and the movement of thepre-compacted bale into the final baling chamber 10A (FIGS. 2 and 3).The toggle mechanism 20 is adapted to move from the jack-knifed positionshown in FIGS. 1 and 2 to a position in which arms 22 and 24 are inalignment during which movement further compaction of the bale takesplace and also the bale is pushed into the baling chamber 10A. Themoving of the toggle mechanism is effected by means of two sets of ramscomprising firstly a pair of double acting rams 34 of small diameter andone single action ram 36 of large diameter and having one end pivotallyconnected to block 26. The other end of ram 36 is pivotally connected bymeans of links 18 pivoted at the same pivot points as the other ends ofarms 22, 24 and which links 18 contain the thrust of ram 36 within thetoggle mechanism. In moving the toggle mechanism from the position shownin FIG. I, to the position in which the arms 22, 24 are in alignment.Firstly the rams 34 are pressurised and the movement of the togglemechanism commences. At a predetermined stage in this movement, the ram36 is also pressurised and assists the rams 34. The second togglemechanism is raised from the in line or lower position of rams 34 to thejack-knifed position by pressurising the opposite sides of rams 34.

In forming the bale from a batch of material placed in chamber 10, thefollowing sequence of operations takes place. The plate 14 and bar 32are in the positions shown in FIG. 1, but when the batch of material isintroduced into the first compaction chamber 10, then door 12 is closedby means of the hydraulic rams 40 (see FIG. 1) and thereby the batch ofmaterial is trapped in chamber 10. Next, the rams 16 move plate 14 toperform the initial compaction in chamber and subsequently rams 34 andram 36 move and force toggle mechanism to the straight position. Duringthis movement of toggle mechanism 20 the bale is firmly compacted and isalso pushed into the bale chamber 10A (see FIG. 2) where it takes up agenerally cubic shape. The bale chamber 10A is defined by a tube 42 ofheavier gauge metal than chamber 10 because it will have to withstandheavier compaction pressures in the final compaction stages. A slidedisplacement ram 44 as shown in FIG. 3 next displaces bale chamber 42and the compacted bale into an ejection section 46, from which the baleis finally ejected through outlet 48 by means of an ejection ram 50(FIG. 3). The compaction bar 32 is connected to a slide block 51 whichslides on guide rods 52. The piston 28 has a slide block 54 which alsoslides on rails 52.

When the toggle mechanism 20 reaches the lower position, a finalcompaction force to produce a densely compacted bale of as near cubicform as possible is applied by pressurising the cylinder 30. Thecylinder and the various rams 40, 16, 34, 36, 44 and 50 are operated insequence by a suitable electro -hydraulic control system At thecompletion ofa cycle, the rams return to their initial positions, asshown in the drawings, and another batch of material, such as townrefuse, is dropped into the first compaction chamber 10.

In accordance with the method of the invention the batch of materialforming the bale is treated with steam to ensure that the spaces orvoids within the finally compacted bale are filled or partly filled withsteam when the bale is ejected from bale chamber 42. To this end theplate 56 defining an end wall of the second baling chamber 42 isprovided with a bore 58 containing a steam injection valve 60 which isconnected by a steam pipe 62 to a source of live steam which is at apressure of 100 p.s.i. At the end of the first compaction stage, butbefore final compaction by compaction bar 32, steam is injected into thesecond bale chamber 42 by a momentarily operation of valve 60. Duringsubsequent and final compaction of the bale in the bale chamber 42, thesteam is forced into the bale material displacing the air from thespaces therein and if reference is made to FIG. 4 it is to be pointedout that the air escapes past the outer edges of the thrust face of bar32 as shown by arrows 66, at the input end of bale chamber 42. Theresult is that the spaces in the final bale are partly or completelyfilled with steam. This ensures that when the b'ale is ejected from tube48, to atmosphere, i.e. the restraint of the walls of tube 42 isremoved, the bale does not tend to expand as it would do if the spaceswithin the bale were filled only with air, due to the fact that thesteam condenses and the pressure in the said spaces reduces, wherebybales of maxi mum density are obtained. 7

It is to be appreciated that the method of forcing the steam into thebale can be varied as desired. Thus steam may be injected into the baleduring initial compaction and it may be injected through thrust plates14 and/or 32. Again, in any or both compaction stages, the compactionmay be stopped at an intermediate position and the steam injectedthereinto, and then the compaction process completed.

Moreover, it will be appreciated that the method can be used in othertypes of baling presses such as the type wherein the batch of materialis baled in a single stroke of a hydraulic ram acting directly on acompaction plate.

I claim:

1. A method of forming in a bale chamber a highly compacted bale from abatch of refuse comprising the steps of:

filling the bale chamber with steam; and forcing a loose batch of refuseunder power into the baling chamber and compacting it in the chambercausing the steam to displace air from pockets in the refuse and therebypreventing the pockets in the refuse from trapping air during thecompaction, said pockets being filled with steam so that the subsequentcondensation of said steam causes a partial vacuum to aid compaction.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the refuse is given initial compactionin the bale chamber in the presence of steam to form a partly formedbale and then the partly formed bale is subjected to a step of finalcompaction.

1. A method of forming in a bale chamber a highly compacted bale from abatch of refuse comprising the Steps of: filling the bale chamber withsteam; and forcing a loose batch of refuse under power into the balingchamber and compacting it in the chamber causing the steam to displaceair from pockets in the refuse and thereby preventing the pockets in therefuse from trapping air during the compaction, said pockets beingfilled with steam so that the subsequent condensation of said steamcauses a partial vacuum to aid compaction.
 2. The method of claim 1wherein the refuse is given initial compaction in the bale chamber inthe presence of steam to form a partly formed bale and then the partlyformed bale is subjected to a step of final compaction.